Just sayin’

No wonder I keep getting these two movies mixed up %)

Brown paper bag? Check. French bread? Check.

I love movie clichés. I wish life were as simple as one big movie cliché. On a totally random whim, I’d like to note a totally random movie cliché- and I’ll probably randomly drop a few more in the next subsequent posts. Hell, I’ll even make a new category for it.

First on the list is my favorite. I dunno why but the baguette-sticking-out-of-grocery-shopping-bag-cliché in movies crack me up.

Umm, that Star Wars movie

Thanks to the people over at Cinematical, my Friday morning’s just been made.

Here’s a fan made video re-telling the Star Wars trilogy by someone who’s only seen bits and pieces of it. Pretty accurate storytelling – coulda fooled me! – and it’s alotta funny stuff. Keep the faith!

Judd and Kevin make a movie

Zack and Miri Make a Porno ( 2008 )

I heard from a friend once that the sweetest thing a guy could ever do for his girlfriend is to think of her as he masturbates. With that in mind, Zack and Miri embodies just that idea, being ewww and awww at the same time.

An appropriate conclusion to my recent Kevin Smith marathon, his latest View Askew foray once again tells a crude yet endearing story about everyday people finding love in the most awkward and unusual of situations. Although Zack and Miri falls a few threads short of a supposed tapestry of emotions and themes, it’s Smith’s dialogue that left me in stitches with the right amount of heartfelt sap that equates to this unconventional romantic comedy perfect for a Wednesday evening. Oh and Jason Mewes aka Jay is in it, too yay drool gah

Wacking out

The Wackness ( 2008 )

Top-billed among popular movie blog sites as The Movie Where Gandhi Sucks Face With That Olsen Twin, ‘The Wackness’ really IS that movie and a lot more. In the same vein as most coming-of-age movies, ‘The Wackness’ contains the usual ingredients of teenage angst tragicomedies set to a Manhattan ’90s summer backdrop.

There is definitely an autobiographical feel to this slightly maudlin drama, and it’s exactly the kind of storytelling that shows more love for the writer’s own material rather than reaching out to its audience. Josh Peck’s portrayal of the low-key teen Luke Shapiro is fun to watch (but delivers the oddest lines no human would ever say) and Ben Kingsley effortlessly steals every scene as Dr. Squires- a psychiatrist with more issues than all his patients combined. But with each ensuing scene, Peck’s character becomes less and less likeable- and so does the whole movie. Surreal elements stick out; and at the end of it all, it’s come down to the same material we’ve seen before- just lensed a different way. Shapiro’s eventual transformation isn’t rewarding, nor is it moving. In fact it stays true to the film’s nature. Uhmm, now that’s wack, yo.

Bhollywood

Sing to me, Saawariya!

Saawariya (2007) : 1.5/5

It presents itself as a fairly easy movie to love; but as treacherous as most films tend to be, Saawariya stabs you in the back with an excruciating 120+ minutes of blue hued cinematography on fanciful sets with overextended (and forgettable) song numbers (with the exclusion of the catchy title song, haha).

I wanted to like this movie. I wanted to like the characters but none of them proved to be worthy of forging an affinity with, as they all seemed either too naive, too stupid, too dreamy, or too achingly annoying. Come to think of it, Saawairya doesn’t live up to its supposed expectations. When the most intriguing thing about a film is its production design and gorgeous lead actors, you know you’re in trouble (I forgot where I read this).

In its entirety, Saawariya’s handicap is unclear but you’ll definitely see it wobbling hard as the film climaxes. It turned out to be a sad case of abandoned characters and a forgotten plot- all for the sake of an overly stylized fairy-tale like Indian utopia. And without even reading the IMDB trivia page, it’s evident that Hollywood has dipped its dirty fingers into what would’ve been a delicious Bollywood treat. It has now tarnished into a soiled amalgamation of both, which i now dub as Bhollywood. I know. Ang baho talaga.

Dekada Cinemanila: 10th Cinemanila International Film Festival – Oct 16-29

Ok time out from Aladygma for a bit.

So many films, so little time!

To be honest I’ve never attended a single Cinemanila film fest event– somehow Gateway seems so faaar away ,albeit being only an MRT ride away from my house. But the lineup this year looks like a good one– it’s 100 films for Cinemanila’s 10th year to be shown in a time frame of only TWO WEEKS. TWO. WEEKS. ONLY. Can you say overwhelming.,! If I stuck to my happy bum life I would’ve been at Gateway right now. Anyway all that aside, I’m still hoping to catch at least some of the films there– so far, here’s my must-watch list:

Band’s Visit

A small Egyptian Police band arrives in Israel. They are suppose to play at an initiation ceremony but instead are left stranded at the airport. The band tries to make their way on their own, only to find themselves in a desolate, small Israeli town, somewhere in the heart of the desert. A lost band in a lost town.

(I saw the trailer to this movie on a DVD a longlonglong time ago., it’s been on my must-watch list for more than a year now)

 

Sukiyaki Western Django | 121 min | DIRECTOR : Takashi Miike | Japan | 2007

Set during “The Genpei Wars” at the end of the 1100s, the Minamoto and Taira gangs face off in a town named Yuda, while a deadly gunman (Ito Hideaki) comes to the aid of the townsfolk.

(I heard from a friend that this isn’t one of Miike’s best works. No wait, let me rephrase- he said it was really bad. Oh well,. will just have to see it myself)

I’M A CYBORG, BUT THAT’S OK | 105 min | DIRECTOR: Park Chan-wook | South Korea |2007

The film takes place in a mental institution. Young-goon, a young woman who believes herself to be a cyborg, refuses to eat and instead administers electric shocks to herself. Il-sun, a young male patient hospitalized for anti-social behaviour and schizophrenia, who believes he can take other peoples souls, befriends Young-goon. After Young-goon is given shock treatment, she believes that she has been recharged and fantasizes about killing the hospital staff who had previously taken her mentally-ill grandmother away. In reality, her physical condition begins to deteriorate rapidly. By convincing her that he had installed a food-to-electrical-energy converting unit (a rice-megatron) in her back, Il-sun gets Young-goon to eat.

(This Chan-wook Park movie had me at the title. heehee)

See the complete list of Cinemanila movies here -http://www.cinemanila.org.ph/films.htm

Now I don’t understand why the ‘Schedule’ portion of the Cinamanila website leads to the main page. It’s the second day of the fest and still no viewable schedule. Not good at all !

The 10th Cinemanila International Film Festival runs from October 16-29 at Gateway Cineplex 10, Araneta Center.

Going for that second wind

 

Two days ago my mom bought this DVD (on sale!) on a semi-whim (with some persuasion from my end haha). Now that it sits nicely on the shelf, I wonder how long it’ll be till I decide to pull it out and watch it all in a single sitting. Now THIS is a movie to prep me for my self-imposed 5-day movie watching competition! Nah maybe just for movie-watching endurance.

Crumb-y Korean Horror

Entertain us

Hansel & Gretel (2007): 2/5

There’s something about Korean films that’s just innately weird and unpredictable (this one reminded me of ‘Cut’ in the Three Extremes trilogy)- and it is precisely in those qualities where its predictability stems from. Its story is bleak, in spite of the highly paradoxical (yet appropriate) and picturesque rainbow-doused color scheme glaring out of the screen- too bad, really, because behind this curtain of hopeful possibilities for a classic horror story lies a dragging narrative devoid of any grotesque, overt scares and cheap thrills (which I think I was initially after- haha). In the end, I felt deprived of any such catharsis as the odd and surreal twists and turns lead to an ambiguous (not in a good way) conclusion.

Shmash-shmortion!

He has a nice personality

Knocked Up (2007): 4/5

Contrary to popular belief, I do keep an open mind when it comes to movies of the Will Ferrell type (the ones of the Happy Madison people, however, have gotten increasingly irritating- must be the mood swings or that time of the month). But i’m glad this movie caught me at neither occasion. Regardless of it being another stoner flick with endless hit-and-miss comedic bits, this movie isn’t as knocked up as it appears to be, yet there is some heart to be found in the depths of its apparent and well, stupid-movie surface. It runs a bit too long though, clocking in at more than 2 hours, but the point being driven at is clearly there (or did I look too much into this movie?).

It’s a good movie, this one is. Good movies make you care, make you believe in possibilities again. And to sum up, a line from one of Woody Allen’s movies comes to mind after watching Knocked Up (for the second time!). It goes:- “I just met the most wonderful man. He’s fictional but you can’t have everything.”